The complicated, messy logistics of a potential special election

Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Tabitha Lehman says one of the main questions she gets is what her department does between elections.

“I kind of laugh and say, ‘When are we between elections?’ ” she said.

Sedgwick County was supposed to have a longer break before its next countywide election. Then President-elect Trump nominated 4th District Congressman Mike Pompeo to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

“We were supposed to be ‘between elections’ right now,” Lehman said at a county commission meeting this month. “We no longer are.”

If Pompeo is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, his replacement will be chosen by the voters of the 4th District, which includes Sedgwick County and most of south-central Kansas.

Officials will need to work quickly to set up polling locations and get workers for the polls. And if the county’s new voting machines aren’t ready in time, most voters will cast paper ballots.

Timing

It’s still unknown when that special election would take place. That depends on the timing of Pompeo’s Senate confirmation and subsequent resignation. But Lehman says it’s clear “that timeline is very challenging.”

“We don’t know when it will occur,” she said. “We will have to move very, very quickly when it does.”

Once a vacancy occurs, the governor has five days to call for a special election that would take place between 45 and 60 days later.

The political parties can’t nominate someone for the race until 25 days after the election is called by the governor.

Even if the full 60-day window is granted by the governor, there would be only 35 days for Lehman’s office to know the names on the ballot for the election.

Yet Lehman said her office is required by state and federal law to mail out military or overseas ballots 45 days before the election.

Assistant County Counselor Jon Von Achen said a legislative solution to the time crunch is in the works. He said most of the state law regarding special elections has not changed since 1969.

“We haven’t had one in so long that no one thought that ‘Hey, we should go back, review and change it,’ ” Von Achen said. “We’re working on a solution for that.”

Potential legislative solutions could allow the parties to nominate someone less than 25 days after the election is called, increase the latest date the election can be held or a combination of the two, he said.

“My concern is that our election commissioner has enough time to conduct an election,” Von Achen said.

Lehman said signatures for an independent candidate to get on the ballot would have to be verified by her office, muddying the timeline further.

“There are some definite concerns we have about the timing of this election,” Lehman said.

The two major parties’ nominees will be chosen by committees made up of party activists in the 4th Congressional District.

Miranda Allen, who got 7 percent of the vote running as an independent in the Nov. 8 election, previously told The Eagle she can’t run unless it’s somehow possible for election officials to waive a requirement that an independent candidate get 4 percent of the voters in the district to sign a nominating petition. Meeting that would mean gathering approximately 17,000 signatures in roughly 25 days, a daunting task.

‘In a holding pattern’

It also will be a big challenge to quickly find polling locations for a countywide election, Lehman said. For normal elections, polling sites can get a heads up a year in advance.

“We can’t start anything. We’re just kind of in a holding pattern,” Lehman said. “We know what’s going to come. But we can’t even really call election workers and say, ‘Hey, can you promise to be available every Tuesday from April 1 to July?’ ”

Lehman said she hopes to limit how many polling locations are changed to cut down on costs.

The potential special election also coincides with the department rolling out new voting machines. That process has been sped up because of the extra election.

The machines will arrive in January. Lehman said staff members will make sure the software is running properly.

Lehman said she hopes the office will be able to have its new voting equipment ready to go by the special election.

If the new voting machines are not ready, most voters would cast paper ballots instead, Lehman said. The office will keep 150 of the old voting machines around in case they are needed for voters with disabilities.

“This is the backup plan,” Lehman said. “We don’t anticipate needing this.”

Lehman said it will be hard to predict the turnout of the special election but that her office needs to plan too much rather than too little.

“We will be erring on the side of overstaffing and overbooking,” she said. “We have to plan for the sky to fall and then when the sky does not fall, great. But we still have to plan.”

This story was originally published December 26, 2016 at 3:11 PM with the headline "The complicated, messy logistics of a potential special election."